Ode to Being
Arise in flaming triumph cast
To all the folk in muddy fields
Turning fresh land to end the fast
And bringing forth that which it yields.
The gift is golden rising bread
Laid on the kitchen table spread.

Their bellies call like howling hounds
Baying for hunting at the strain.
Their clinking knives drown out the sounds
Of swirling lives down dirty drain.
It all feels like a crying shame
When hounds are broke from wild to tame.

We shuffle onward down that road
Towards that almost certain fate
That waits for us like squatting toad
To raise its bulk, obliterate.
We’re all fodder for its preying
And ripped apart in its slaying.

George Romero, American filmmaker, died on this day in 2017.

Stephen Spender, English poet, novelist and essayist, died today in 1995.